Vegetarian Festival

In Thailand there are a ton of Chinese people, in fact it is believed that the original Thai’s came from China. Even more Chinese people migrated here to escape oppression, famine and drought. With all of this Chinese migration came about the most amazing thing, the Chinese Vegetarian Festival.

The festival lasts for 10 days and is meant to allow the body to cleanse after all of the meat that has been consumed during the year. Although the festival is a Chinese tradition many Thai’s participate in the festival.

Little yellow flags are flown by restaurants and food stalls to signify their participation in the festival and normally mean that everything is vegetarian. For me this means that for the first time since I was a young child, I can just point to anything and eat it.

For 10 day’s I ate everything I could and picked up dinner everyday from the market. Buying dinner from the market and bringing it home is pretty normal for your average person living in Thailand, however it is not a luxury for a vegetarian. I normally pick up vegetables from the market and take them home to cook myself.

I enjoyed curries, fried things, spicy mixed vegetables, fake meat dishes and I can’t even remember what else. While I was in Bangkok I was also able to go to China town and check out all of the stalls there. The streets were lined with yellow signs everything. I was only slightly disappointed that there wasn’t much that I hadn’t already tried during earlier days of the festival in Pattaya.